Major problems with Renaissance 2010

1) Renaissance 2010 is not an education plan, it’s a business and real estate developer plan.

•    This is Mayor Daley’s plan to push poor African American and Latino residents out of the city.

•     Schools to be closed/etc. have over last 5 years mapped onto areas gentrified or adjacent to gentrified/gentrifying areas, according to a UIC report. 

2) Students are being displaced and discarded. 

•    Research across many cities is conclusive that mobility sets students back academically, which is why responsible school districts try to limit mobility.

•    Stability is not just about being in the same school building; it’s about having the same adults around, yet CPS fires them all in a turnaround.

•    Reports exist all over the city of students in Renaissance 2010 schools being pushed or “counseled out” of these schools, (see PURE report, for example) or not accepted in the first place. Renaissance 2010 schools serve nearly no Limited English Proficient students and fewer special education students than regular schools.

3) Violence has increased in and around schools affected by Renaissance 2010.

•    Closing schools and combining students from different ethnic, racial and gang affiliations has led to an increase in violence centered on our schools, and has become so bad that visitors are now barred from CPS basketball games.

4) The hearing process is fraudulent.

•    CPS changes the school closing, etc., criteria every year.

•    Board members do not attend hearings, do not even read the hearing reports, yet they have voted to approve every recommendation.

•    Only three hearings are being held out in the community for all 22 schools. Individual school hearings are all held at the downtown CPS headquarters, costing $25 for parking.   

•    Hearing officers are highly-paid consultants to CPS & not independent.

•    Data and Democracy report 2008 demonstrates that CPS formula for underenrollment does not account for educationally appropriate use of space. To determine actual space utilization requires on the ground assessment by school community to see how space is actually used. Many AMPS schools fit CPS underenrolled category. This raises questions about why CPS is using this category with these schools.

5) Teachers are not fairly evaluated.

•    Highly qualified certified teachers and staff are being displaced by this non-education plan, including National Board Certified teachers.

•    Data from ISBE shows that the percentage of African-American teachers has declined 5% since the beginning of Renaissance 2010 in 2004, while the percentages of all other racial groups has increased. 

6) Ren 2010 schools do not have LSCs, accountability is poor.

•    PURE report shows two-thirds of the Renaissance 2010 schools failed to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests for basic information about their governing bodies in 2008. Information from the schools that did respond showed that only 5% of their governing body members were parents.

•    A lawsuit against CPS for disbanding LSCs in small and alternative schools was recently allowed to go forward by a Cook County judge. 

•    Renaissance 2010's Transitional Advisory Councils and Alternative LSCs are appointed by CPS. They have no real power and members can be removed by CPS for virtually any reason.

7) Ren 2010 schools get an unfair share of resources.

•    CPS provides special resources to Renaissance 2010 schools, which also receive $500,000 in start-up funds for two years and additional private funding.

•    Most regular schools would have done better if they had such resources.

•    Sherman was given a new sports field.

•    A Senn High School student reported (January 14, 2009) that the Naval Academy housed in Senn got a new science lab while Senn students do not have adequate equipment and are not allowed into the Naval Academy side.

•    A May 2007 Catalyst analysis showed that “Nearly $50 million of $265 million in renovations now underway are being done in Renaissance and charter schools, according to April reports from area offices. That’s about 19 percent of renovations taking place in buildings that house just 4 percent of students.”

8) Renaissance 2010 does not work, needs to be stopped.

•    Sherman Elementary is lower-performing than the proposed 2009 elementary turnaround schools, yet Sherman is supposed to be their “model” (see graph comparing Sherman with proposed 2009 turnarounds and graph of more worrisome Sherman data.

•    A 2008 Rand Corporation study showed that Chicago’s “charter schools performance in raising student achievement is approximately on par with traditional public schools.”

What we want:

•    A moratorium on Renaissance 2010.

•    LSCs in every school.

•    Unionized, certified teachers in every school.

•    A financial audit and other independent research done to determine effects on students and the effectiveness of Renaissance 2010 schools.

•    Use of models found within regular neighborhood schools (i.e. Big Picture, CTU Fresh Start schools)